In a world where religion is both increasingly important to global affairs and increasingly taboo as a topic of conversation and debate, journalist Mollie Hemingway works to bridge the gap. The 36-year-old D.C. resident writes the news of faith and beliefs for the popular blog GetReligion.org. She also has written for Christianity Today, the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times, and received a Phillips Foundation fellowship through which she researched and wrote about the changing shape of religion in America’s public arena. She shared with The Washington Examiner thoughts on a career that centers around religion, and the religion that is central to her life. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith?
Yes, I’m a confessional Lutheran and a member of a Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod congregation. We’re known for emphasizing the sacraments, having Christendom’s best hymns and congregations that love to sing them, clear preaching of God’s Word, and not being as influenced by the changing tides of pop culture. I most appreciate that we are upfront about the fact that everyone is a sinner in need of forgiveness. While the culture may downplay sin, we know it’s real and that God’s grace and forgiveness is the only remedy. Through the sacraments we receive this forgiveness and a strengthening of our faith.
Did anyone or any event especially influence your faith?
The most important event in my life was when my parents brought me to the baptismal font. I was three weeks old. Lutherans believe that baptism works forgiveness of sins and gives eternal salvation to those who believe God’s word. We believe that our baptism should be remembered every day and that we should daily repent of our sins, dying to our old life, and daily rise to walk in new righteousness. Our daily prayers and liturgy are built around this central event in each of our lives.
It seems in some ways that reporting on religion could lead to doubts about one’s own faith, or at least to confusion or pluralism. How has your journalism shaped or affected your own faith? Has it made you any more or less of an orthodox Lutheran?
That hasn’t been my experience at all. For one thing, my job as a reporter isn’t to advocate for one belief system over another. Rather, I aim to break news or explain trends, and allow individuals to tell their own story.
Lutherans study not just what we believe but what we don’t believe. So I already knew we held different doctrines as well as why. Nevertheless, I have found that learning more about other faiths has generally strengthened my own. I have seen new religious ceremonies and structures and met wonderful atheists, pagans, Druze, Jains, Muslims, Jews, Mormons, Evangelicals and Catholics. Some of my conversations with them have challenged me, but in general I’ve found that it makes me appreciate Lutheran teachings much more. The best example of this is that I used to be attracted to unbelief. While I still enjoy reporting on atheists and have many non-believing friends, learning more about atheism and its history has cured me of any attraction to it.
Many people consider a vocation to be an occupation — or maybe an occupation that’s especially satisfying. How does the Lutheran understanding of vocation extend beyond our careers?
Lutherans have a special understanding of vocation. It’s not limited to one’s job but every single relationship I have, including parent, child, friend, neighbor, parishioner and citizen. It’s any position in which I am the instrument through which God works in the world.
So, for instance, God heals us by giving us doctors and nurses. He feeds us by giving us farmers and bakers. He gives us earthly order through our governors and legislators, and he gives us life through our parents. God is providing all these gifts — but we receive them from our neighbors.
Luther wrote that fathers should not complain when they have to rock a baby, change his diaper, or care for the baby’s mother, but instead should view each act as a holy blessing. Everything we do in service to others is a holy blessing.
At your core, what is one of your defining beliefs?
I believe, with the Apostles, that Jesus Christ is the God-man who died to redeem the world from sin, rose bodily from the dead, and will raise me in the body on the last day.
– Leah Fabel
